back to article Go fourth and multi-Pi: Raspberry Pi 4 lands today with quad 1.5GHz Arm Cortex-A72 CPU cores, up to 4GB RAM...

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has multiplied 3 by 3 and come up with 4: today a new Pi, the Raspberry Pi 4, officially launches with three times the grunt of the previous generation, the Raspberry Pi 3. The diminutive Raspberry Pi computer has enjoyed a number of updates since the original went on sale in 2012. The $35 Model B …

  1. werdsmith Silver badge

    Thank you for heads up Reggy. Half a dozen 4GB Pis on order before 0730. :)

    1. bungle42

      Curious ...

      Out of curiosity what is it that you plan to do with 6 of the new PI's?

      1. defiler

        Re: Curious ...

        Dunno about others, but I have Pis around the house to do all the smart TV stuff.

        4k video playback and H.265 would be nice.

        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          Re: Curious ...

          It's 2019 so support for AV1 would be even nicer. ;-)

          1. defiler

            Re: Curious ...

            Perhaps, but H.265 is on 4k BluRay discs, so if you're running on straight rips off the plastic (saves losing discs, kids mangling discs etc) then it's plenty.

            Of course other people have other use cases - I'm not one for downloading movies, so AV1 is a new thing to me. Others, I'm sure, would choose to recode their disc rips to reduce size. I gave up on that game after the third time ripping all my CDs and just went lossless...

            1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

              Re: Curious ...

              You should be able to transcode BluRay to AV1, which is quite a bit more efficient than even h265, especially for hi-res. Though transcoding in software probably isn't going to be much fun. But I think there are already ARM/GPU combos that do offer HW-encoding and I think Apple's more recent offerings can.

              1. defiler

                Re: Curious ...

                But you're back to throwing away detail. It's not much, I grant you, but storage is cheap. I avoid transcoding completely.

                Yes, space saving yadda yadda. But lossy each time you change vs £88 for a 4TB drive...

                1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

                  Re: Curious ...

                  Right, sorry misread your post. If the stream is already h265 then you're looking at a lot of CPU time and diminishing returns. OTOH if you're time-shifting then it makes more sense and TBH decoding AV1 in hardware should also be possible on a new chip.

                  1. defiler

                    Re: Curious ...

                    Morning, Charlie. To be clear, my movie library is H.264. Whenever I've got a 4k BluRay I've got a pack with a 1080 disc in it as well, basically because I'm running it all on Pis which are limited to 1080p (until yesterday!). Hence all my HD stuff is in H.264, with a few VC-1 outliers that required me to buy that codec key (2001, I'm looking at you...).

                    Yes, if I recoded it to H.265 I could save space. Yes if I recoded it to AV1 I could perhaps save space again. But unless I'm recoding them from the source each time I'll be hitting accumulating artefacts which build up surprisingly quickly when you change codecs about.

                    I'm a little bit away from 4k video here, as I'd have to upgrade the Pis, and also my amp. I know, I could use HDMI ARC, but I hate the interface on the telly for dealing with that nonsense. Come that day, though, I'll just use the H.265 from the discs again.

                    I have a mate with his video library parked on USB drives in a Raspberry Pi server. He balks at my profligate waste of drive space, and recodes everything - I'm not here to judge what he or anybody else does, and if that fits somebody's use case that's fine. If it comes to TV recording / time-shifting, slamming it all to a more efficient codec isn't a bad idea because the picture quality is rubbish anyway - I hadn't thought about that!

                    Dunno why we're both attracting downvotes on it all, though, because it's literally a case of personal preference. There's no right or wrong answer - you choose the tradeoff you're happiest with.

                    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

                      Re: Curious ...

                      I never really worry about downvotes. Some people just don't like your face.

                      I've found that, while hard drives are cheap, they don't necessarily last that long. My library is mainly TV-recordings which is why a more efficient codec is interesting. Though it's currently a moot point as the most recent version of LibreElec doesn't have the TV-Headend for my tuner.

                      1. defiler

                        Re: Curious ...

                        Yeah, and it always amuses me that most times you say "but why the downvotes" there's always someone who comes back and downvotes everything you've written in that thread...

                        I use a separate TVHeadend server with an SSD for my recordings. It's indulgent, but it means it starts instantly for pausing live TV and stuff. It's in a VM, with the tuners passed down via MiniSatIP on a Rapsberry Pi. I'll maybe look at transcoding the recordings, because it's a bit of a waste to devote swathes of SSD to Love Island... :-/

                        Tell me, does it work if you start watching a recording while it's still recording the other end of the show? Or does that upset the transcode?

                        1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
                          Thumb Down

                          Re: Curious ...

                          I'll have to admit I haven't tried that and can't at the moment for obvious reasons. Then again, I don't record that much Jorman TV because it's quite frankly awful, and I mean awful. Even the copies of formats like Love Island, and I'm sure there is one, get some Teutonic turd-polishing to make them even worse than they were.

                          Getting the first downvote in early! ;-)

                    2. andro

                      Re: Curious ...

                      my pi3 lives in the shed running the pi version of orchid core for its nice html5 interface for 6 1080p security cameras. the cams all talk to the pi on one isolated vlan and save back to a nas on another vlan. while this works io bandwidth is limited, and i want to write my own home automation app in ruby on rails as that language is now part of my day job. but rails is known to be a memory hog.... now a pi4 with gigabit, usb3 and 4gb of ram is going to increase the real world limits i was up against out of sight. $5 of adapters is slightly annoying but ill just buy what i need in one hit and its not a deal breaker for me. the improvements are more than worth it. i think they might sell more of the 4gb version than they realise. not everyone is chasing just price, a lot of the time the software quality and size of the community is what puts them ahead of competing platforms (real or perceived).

      2. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Curious ...

        @bungle42 :

        Curious ...

        Out of curiosity what is it that you plan to do with 6 of the new PI's?

        ---

        I plan to use two. One is effectively a desktop computer which is the only non-laptop I use.

        The other is the learning machine where I try stuff out, fail and start again. The switching of an SD card is the effective revert to snapshot.

        The other four are ordered for colleagues asked for one when I told them it was available.

  2. Dwarf

    Sata

    If only they had added the much requested sata port...

    The additional RAM and end of one-size-fits-all pricing is welcome.

    1. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: Sata

      They added USB3, which is similar in terms of speed and rather easy in terms of access.

      I presume it can still be net booted, with GigE and PoE that means a relatively easy ‘no SD card’ version, using one of those USB ports for local mass storage.

      I can’t recall if the SOC even has SATA.

      1. James Hughes 1

        Re: Sata

        USB and PXE boot is on the list of stuff to do. Won't be long. WIth the new EEPROM based bootloader, this sort of thing is much easier to implement.

        1. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: Sata

          Thanks for that James.

          I'm looking forward to working out what I need one (or a dozen) for.

          1. Ian Michael Gumby
            Boffin

            @John Robson... Re: Sata

            There are a couple of nice projects that make sense.

            Ever thought about a homebrew security system?

            Thats just one project.

            1. John Robson Silver badge

              Re: @John Robson... Sata

              There are plenty of projects that make sense.

              But that doesn't mean I can justify them.

              1. Steven Raith

                Re: @John Robson... Sata

                I like to justify these things in terms of takeaway dinners.

                I mean, £50, that's two Dominos pizzas. Well, it is by *my* standards...

                Boom, justified.

                That said, my next project (seeing as I've just thrown PiHole onto a RaspPi Zero W after testing it on my old Pi3B+) is a used Proliant DL360, because if you sniff around (and aren't too fussed by power consumption - I justify that by reminding myself that I've replaced a dozen lightbulbs in this house with LEDs...) you can find them, sans disks admittedly, for around £50-100.

                I'm sure I'll be picking up a Pi 4 once the software environment has matured though.

                Steven "tinkering rather than moping and being depressed" R

      2. Marco van de Voort

        Re: Sata

        Afaik in older BCMs there is a parallel expansion bus that sata chips could be attached to.

        1. drgeoff

          Re: Sata

          So why hasn't anyone produced a SATA interface addon board to attach to that parallel expansion bus?

          Because it is a figment of Marco van de Voort's imagination.

      3. Nick Ryan Silver badge

        Re: Sata

        This one has PoE? Skimming through articles I thought this was still a bit of a hack job? I know that PoE is a bit of a niche thing, but it's great for reducing annoying cable requirements.

        As for the Micro HDMI connectors... while I love the idea of dual outputs, Micros HDMI connectors are the work of the devil and fail all the damn time. I can see that the USB3 port will be used for video instead on many systems as a result...

        1. VikiAi
          Boffin

          Re: Sata

          It is compatible with the existing PoE HAT.

          So not PoE out-of-the-box, but it is an easy add-on.

          1. defiler

            Re: Sata

            Loving the way people are attracting spurious downvotes for stating facts here.

            Also, I hopped onto eBay and get PoE adapters that just dangle in-line with the Pi. No moving parts, awh then I got them the official ones were being pretty shonky.

            Anyway, have an upvote to balance the silly downvote.

        2. Richard Plinston

          Re: Sata

          > I know that PoE is a bit of a niche thing, but it's great for reducing annoying cable requirements.

          I'm waiting for PoWiFi.

          1. Allan George Dyer
            Mushroom

            Re: Sata

            @Richard Plinston - "I'm waiting for PoWiFi."

            Try putting it in your microwave oven...

        3. drgeoff

          Re: Sata

          I fear that Nick Ryan is confusing "a USB3 port may carry video" with "a USB3 port shall carry video".

    2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: Sata

      I have 3 spinning disks attached to a Pi via USB (and three more attached so something similar which does have an SATA port attached to an SSD). With an SATA port I would need a new box to hold the Pi and one disk + power for the disk. There are SATA hubs so I could connect all three but then I would need vibration mounts so the disks do not trash each other.

      With eSATA the disk can go in a different box but it still needs power. With eSATAp, the disk could get power but not from the Pi. If there is an eSATAp hub then each disk would then need adaptors to separate the power from the SATA. (I used to own two eSATA devices. They were fine until they broke and I had to switch back to USB to recycle the SSDs.)

      Boxes with a USB->SATA bridge plus power are cheap. If I run out of USB ports USB hubs are cheap. In seven years I have had two of those 6 disks fail. As all the enclosures are USB3 I could swap out the broken disk, attach it and its backup to a USB3 device and restore the data in a couple of days.

      USB may be ugly but it is cheap and I have spare parts lying around. An SATA solution would require buying multiple expensive parts for redundancy and extra fiddling with a screwdriver to move disks around during a restore.

      That other box I have is not noticeably faster for having the OS on SATA SSD instead of SDHC like a Pi. Mythic Beasts run their Pi servers with network attached storage and those have been hosting www.raspberrypi.org for years.

      If you have a use-case that fits on a small cheap computer but only with SATA, try a cubox or something similar. A Pi 4 can solve plenty of problems without SATA so I can see why they chose to save money there.

    3. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Re: Sata

      Sata? Don't you mean NVMe? Only half-joking. It'd be overkill but with the Pi overkill is the name of the game based on some of the projects I've seen out there.

      1. eldakka
        Coat

        Re: Sata

        Overkill?

        I'd think that'd be putting SAS with a single SAS HD connector on there for 4x12Gb/s channels. ;)

        Would make a nice NAS box then (especially if you start considering chaining SAS expanders off it)!

    4. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Sata

      I would much prefer eMMC on-board. To me that is the main draw of certain imitation Pi's

      I don't have spare SD cards laying around, and I've found them far too unreliable so I just avoid them completely now.

      My main box at home boots from SD but literally only the bootloader and then switches to a rootfs on external HDD.

      1. Martin an gof Silver badge

        Re: Sata

        I don't have spare SD cards laying around, and I've found them far too unreliable so I just avoid them completely now

        As the shepherd of 40+ Pis at work and home, several examples of just about every iteration since the original in 2012 except the "A" and "Zero" versions, I would like to point out that:

        • onboard eMMC cannot be upgraded - I've often wondered how practical the small amount in the Compute Modules is - whereas for many applications you can simply fit an appropriately-sized SD card. Many of my Pis are unattended video players; they have no need of external storage if I fit 16GB or 32GB SD cards while the unit I use for desktop purposes at home is ok with 8GB as documents are on network storage.
        • SD cards are not at all expensive
        • it's practical to keep a spare SD card for swapping-out, and possibly easier setting it up by slotting it into another computer
        • known-brand SD cards (I tend to buy Sandisk, the "official" ones are usually Samsung and I've also had good experience with Transcend) are remarkably reliable. I don't think over the years I've had more than one or two completely fail on me whereas all the "cheap" brand cards I've had have eventually died.

        The original model Pis did have some difficulty with SD cards, you could easily cause card errors requiring a re-image by removing power at an inopportune moment (particularly during boot) but OS updates have largely mitigated this on those old units, and I've found recent models to be much more forgiving.

        M.

        1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
          Boffin

          Re: Sata

          Onboard cannot be upgraded, true, but that doesn't mean that you can't add extra storage through an SD card or similar if needed. You could have the OS on eMMC and your video files on an SD card if you wanted - that way surely you have the best of both worlds?

          Quality SD cards add a significant proportion to the cost of the Pi. I can get an equivalent SBC (except the GPIO/HAT bits) with onboard storage, a case and a PSU for less than the cost of a bare rPi.

          eMMC can be implemented such that a USB port becomes a client when unpowered - plug the whole SBC into a computer and write to the onboard storage. Just as easy as writing to and swapping SD cards.

          My most recent SD failure was about 2 months ago - a Sandisk 32GB jobby.

          I too have purchased many Pis over the years - I was even fortunate enough to get 2 in the first commercial shipment (the ones that you had to short out the USB fuses if you wanted any chance of powering USB devices)

      2. phuzz Silver badge

        Re: Sata

        I've been recommended to look at SD cards marketed for dashcams, as they're designed to cope with constant writes.

        Both Sandisk and Samsung have an "Endurance" line.

      3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Sata

        >I would much prefer eMMC on-board. To me that is the main draw of certain imitation Pi's

        That is the entire point of the Pi.

        Kids today don't learn computers because if they break something on the classroom Windows PC the teacher doesn't have the time/skills to fix it and so the school machines are under a support contract.

        So if a kid explores and breaks something it costs real money, so there are rules against it, so you get a generation of kids who are afraid to click anything in case they are expelled for "terrorist cyber hacking destroying school property"

        The point of a Pi was: encourage kids to break them, a fix is just an SD card swap away.

    5. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Sata

      "If only they had added the much requested sata port."

      A while ago I looked at similar boards with onboard SATA. The SATA was an onboard adapter from USB so you could do the same thing with a USB/SATA cable.

    6. john.w

      Re: Sata

      I ordered an mSata SSD board (£14.99) last week, good news is its USB3 but the nice link board would connect to the USB2 on the Pi4. Ho hum, not the end of the world, will need the cable.

  3. John Robson Silver badge

    SoDimm version?

    That ‘nearly a laptop’ that was mentioned a few weeks ago - could rather benefit from an upgrade?

  4. Dave Pickles

    B****r!

    Guess who bought a Pi3 (as a gift for a relative) yesterday...

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: B****r!

      I think if you go in to the shop in Cambridge, you could exchange that....

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: B****r!

      You've got 14 days to return for any reason if you bought online.

      1. Dave Pickles

        Re: B****r!

        Thanks for the reminder, unfortunately my bro-i-l has thrown away the packaging. Sometimes Amazon can be too efficient!

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: B****r!

          Look on the bright side, you've solved the problem of what to get him for Christmas.

        2. Dan 55 Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: B****r!

          No, I think the problem here is bro-i-l is too efficient.

        3. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: B****r!

      If it fits for what they want/need it for, they still have a perfectly fine Pi. So what if it's not the latest shiny shiny. That doesn't stop the other ones out there from operating just fine.

  5. dajames

    Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

    That's interesting, as I was going to comment that I couldn't see any point in the 2GB version.

    I'd have thought a lot of people would be happy with the 1GB version as an upgrade from a 1GB Pi 3/3+ and it is, after all, the cheapest while a lot of people will be keen to get more RAM -- especially for desktop-type use -- and will go straight for the 4GB.

    UK prices are £43/£44/£54 at the places I've checked, so the incremental RAM cost from 1GB to 2GB is £10/GB but from 1GB to 4GB it's only £6.67/GB -- why would anyone buy the 2GB model?

    1. John70

      Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

      I would just go for the 4GB model.

    2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

      My largest computer has 2GB so I expect that is plenty for many use-cases. When I buy one Pi 4 it will have 4GB in case I need it for some reason later because it will be cheaper than "upgrading". The obvious use case for 2GB is if you are buying a hundred. You might actually notice £1000 off the bill that includes boxes, PSUs, video cables and installation. If you are buying monitors, SDHC cards, keyboards, mice and installing ethernet cables too then the extra money for 4GB becomes rounding a error.

      I too am surprised that 2GB is expected to be popular but Pi's often end up in places that are price sensitive. That must be a bigger market segment than we think.

      1. Martin an gof Silver badge

        Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

        I too am surprised that 2GB is expected to be popular but Pi's often end up in places that are price sensitive

        For my specific use-case at work the 2GB option is likely to be the best. I use a lot of Pis as video players and have been wondering about how to get them running in-synch for a particular display which uses twin projectors. Two video outputs (especially if they can be treated as one) on a single Pi would solve that (at the moment I'm working on an x86 solution) and I suspect that although I'm not doing anything else with the computer it would be a tight fit for two video streams (even just HD as the projectors are certainly not 4k) in 1GB RAM, but 2GB would be comfortable.

        For desktop use, yes, 4GB. Web browsing is tedious in 1GB though LibreOffice works well if you go easy on the clipart. For headless or single video output, 1GB is more than enough; a dozen or so of my video players are model 1 Pis with 256MB RAM.

        M

        1. theDeathOfRats

          Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

          @Martin an gof:

          I don't know what you really want to do with those twin projectors, but your comment reminded me of this article in the raspberrypi.org blog:

          Video playback on freely-arranged screens with info-beamer

          Just in case you didn't know about it and it can help.

          1. Martin an gof Silver badge

            Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

            Thanks, that looks great, though it's a bit overkill for my application which will simply be a repeating film on a pair of projectors side-by-side. The current solution uses two specialist video players, each with half the film, synchronised simply by receiving a "start" command - in other words, more by luck than judgement (this wasn't my installation).

            My existing potential replacement is an x86 machine running a Linux with two video outputs and mplayer which will play a unified version of the film in "fullscreen" spanning both outputs. I have actually proved this setup across three screens, but only need two in this instance.

            Great an' all, but if I can do it with a single Pi4 then I save myself £200 - £300 on the kit and I have three of these pairs to think about.

            Sound may be a problem. The films use 4 or 5 channel sound which an x86 machine could decode for me but I may need an external decoding box for the Pis - always assuming I can get multichannel audio out of at least one of the HDMI sockets.

            M.

    3. dajames

      Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

      UK prices are £43/£44/£54 at the places I've checked...

      Oops! I meant £34/£44/£54, of course. <blush>

      Incidentally, I see the Pi Hut is already out of the 1GB and 4GB Pi4s ...

      1. Julz

        Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

        On the Pi Hut only the 2GB model is listed as being in stock (09:28). I guess that settles the popularity contest...

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

          I got the 4GB versions :)

          Unfortunately the kit they do, which has the new case, PSU and cable in, comes only in 2GB form.

          1. James Hughes 1

            Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

            In our testing, for general desktop use, the 2GB was fine. Big compiles (kernel etc) would benefit from 4GB.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              The kernel is a breeze. This 4GB craptop (3.6GB available) chokes to death on waterfox, specifically on linking libxul.so, and that's with make -j 1. If I want it to finish this week, I have to close any major programs e.g. qtcreator and waterfox, which likewise takes plenty of patience because we're already using more than a half GB of swap on spinny rust. I just close everything but that terminal and it has enough RAM to get done, barely.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

          "On the Pi Hut only the 2GB model is listed as being in stock (09:28). I guess that settles the popularity contest..."

          But production and therefore supply is aimed at the 2GB model so it's likely PiHut had a lot more of the 2GB models. Unless you know the initial stock levels and actual sales, it means nothing and doesn't settle anything. Not to mention that the people buying on day one are the most tech aware and enthusiastic and far more likely to always go either for the biggest and best or the version most suitable for a project.

          1. doublelayer Silver badge

            Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

            For me, I'd only consider the 4 GB or 2 GB models. I have enough of these with only a gigabyte of memory. I have never said to myself "I really need more processing but my memory usage is small". Every time I've been tasking the processor, most of the memory is full, too. For that reason, the 1 GB option holds little appeal. 2 GB and 4 GB would both significantly advance. Of course, I have to put all the pis I've collected over the years to use before I start buying more. Or maybe I'll just succumb to the desire again; who knows?

    4. eldakka

      Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

      I agree.

      Maybe if they had skipped 2GB entirely and just had 1GB and 4GB, the volume increases in the 1GB and 4GB by sacrificing the 2GB may have reduced them by a few $$ each.

      But hey, maybe they ran the numbers and it wouldn't have made even a few $ difference in the unit prices.

    5. fajensen
      Pint

      Re: Upton reckons that the 2GB version will be the most popular

      The 4 GB model will be an upgrade from my Lenovo X-230 which has 2GB of RAM. Because IBM used some wierdo-standard proprietary "laptop-special" SDRAM and those 2 GB all we had left when I acquired the thing used from work ... which was about 10 years ago.

      I'll probably get two 4 GB ones, one for my mother, who keeps screwing her windows machine up, and one for myself.

  6. dajames

    Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector, replaced by a couple of type D micro HDMI connectors.

    While this will be a boon for those seeking dual screen delight, it will also elicit a groan from users wondering where to stick their old larger HDMI connectors after unpacking their shiny new Pi 4.

    The Raspberry Pi Zero has always used micro-HDMI, so a lot of Pi users will already have an adaptor or two on hand. It's not as big a change as the switch to USB-C (but that will at least stop people trying to use old USB2 PSUs that don't provide enough current).

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector,

      There simply isn't room on the PI4 for two full size connectors, so it had to be done.

      I think the Zero is mini-hdmi....

      1. The Eee 701 Paddock

        Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector,

        Yes, the Pi Zero (looking at mine for confirmation...) has mini-HDMI.

        I sort-of get why they added two micro-HDMIs to the Pi4 (there *must* be a good few Pi-fans out there who want to drive two displays), but I wonder if they missed a trick with the Pi4's USB-C being power-only? I own an Asus Chromebook Flip C101PA, which packs two USB-C ports. With one of those USB-C "hubs" ("port-replicators", really) you can pick up from Amazon for £30, you can send all sorts of I/O via one USB-C socket, plus "passthrough" power.

        I suppose it's cheaper to cough up for two HDMI-to-microHDMI cables than one of those USB-C hubs, but if it were possible engineering- and cost-wise, I'd really like to see a future "Pi4+" sport a USB-C "plug" which can handle data as well as power.

        Still wouldn't mind one of these little fellas, though - maybe it could run the RasPi port of CentOS at a more usable speed?

        1. Anonymous Custard
          Headmaster

          Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector,

          The problem is that two mini-HDMI to full-HDMI dongles won't fit side by side, at least the standard ones that get shipped in the Pi Zero kits (the "solid block" type dongle).

          The new cables aren't exactly expensive though, and there's always the cable-type dongles as well which probably would fit side-by-side into the new Pi4.

          And there's a new FLIRC case especially for the Pi4, which is excellent to deal with the heat issue (as was the previous version one for the 3B/B+).

          1. d3vy

            Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector,

            You can get mini to full size cables that remove the need for having two adapters side by side.

            Mine was 1.99 on Amazon.

            1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

              Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector,

              Definitely go for the cables. The weight of HDMI cables will destroy the crappy little micro HDMI connectors all the time - the adaptor cables will prevent most of this damage.

          2. Horridbloke

            Re: FLIRC case especially for the Pi4

            Do you have a link for that case? I haven't found it at the obvious sites.

        2. Martin an gof Silver badge

          Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector,

          I wonder if they missed a trick with the Pi4's USB-C being power-only?

          I'm not sure they have. In the caption to the picture of the power connector on the Raspberry Pi Blog it says:

          An extra half amp, and USB OTG to boot
          This is not explained anywhere in the article as far as I can see, but it's an interesting comment...

          M.

          1. doublelayer Silver badge

            Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector,

            This is nice, and I'm tempted as usual to buy one of these. Of course, the pi continues to walk further in the direction of power problems. I understand why they do it, but it makes it harder. At this point, a strong mains powered device will be almost necessary. Gone are the days when you could power a modern pi from a USB phone charger. The zero can do that, but I don't think anything else produced in the last two years can. Similarly, people now need to be recommended to purchase a dedicated power supply with their pi rather than using the old mains to USB adapter and USB cable everyone has in the closet.

            1. Martin an gof Silver badge

              Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector,

              It depends what you are doing with it. At this very moment I have a Pi3B (not a B+) running from a "powerbank" which has a stated output of 1A and a capacity of 4000mAh. The Pi also has a picamera, but it doesn't have any other peripherals.

              It's taking one picture every 30 seconds and until recently it would save that picture to network storage, but it is now sited in an area with limited coverage so it's storing the pictures locally - so long as it can reach the WiFi at some point to update the clock, that's fine. Yesterday I set it going at about 7am and if I remember correctly (I don't have the files to hand) it lasted until about 3pm, maybe a little later. Saving to network used to use a little more battery.

              The red power light does go off occasionally (a sign of "not enough power") but I gather it's mainly there to warn of low power availability to the USB ports (don't forget, it's taking 5V USB in and supplying 5V USB out), while the supply for the electronics is capable of dealing with a much wider range.

              A Pi3B+ won't run from that same powerbank with any reliability, but it runs just fine from one with 2A output doing similar duties and lasting slightly longer because that battery has a capacity of 6000mAh.

              On the desk, connected to HDMI, keyboard, mouse, network, the PSUs I have which are marked 2A are marginal in my experience but a 2.5A power supply works fine.

              As Eben notes in his article, the 3A capability of the USB-C socket is mainly so that there's plenty of power available downstream:<cite> ensuring we have a full 1.2A for downstream USB devices, even under heavy CPU load</cite>

              Hope this helps!

              M.

      2. dajames

        Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector,

        I think the Zero is mini-hdmi....

        Yes, sorry, you're right. I'd sort-of forgotten that there were two different varieties of "smaller than full-size" HDMI. This is micro, the Zero has mini.

        That IS slightly annoying, but I suppose they couldn't fit two mini-HDMI connectors on the Pi4?

    2. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI

      Good news. Now I can use the ultra thin HDMI cable I bought for use with my camera (gimbal stabilisers don't like thick cables) and the Pi will stay where I put it instead of leaping about like a demented frog every time I nudge the cable.

    3. YARR

      Re: Gone is the full-sized HDMI type A connector

      With a little reshuffling, perhaps they could have one full sized and one micro HDMI? That would have been more practical for the majority.

    4. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ethernet

    Is the ethernet still at the end of a USB interface?

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Ethernet

      No, which had you actually read the specs, would have been obvious. Its on a PCIe bus, and gets very close to theoretical max (1Gbs) in testing.

      1. James Hughes 1

        Re: Ethernet

        Er, bollocks. Forced to eat own dog food. The ethernet is a native interface on the SoC, it's the USB3 stuff that is on PCIe. Note to self, think before posting.

        That said, the GiGE is GigE, and not via USB2.

        1. bob, mon!
          Happy

          Re: Ethernet

          True GigE will be a boon for beowulf clusters running MPI or whatever over Ethernet, as the node interconnect is a bottleneck.

          I just built up a 4-node RPi 3B+ cluster for class use, now i need to justify getting 4 new RPi 4's. Also glad to hear that the boards can run on 2.5A, since the cluster doesn't have any peripherals and the current generation of multiport USB P.S.'s max out at 2.5A per port.

          Next step - find out whether 64-bit Devuan will run on the new board.

  8. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Pi-top

    Wonder if it'll fit in a Pi-top laptop or if stuff is changed around on the board too much so it won't fit. At the moment a Pi 3B doesn't quite cut it, a Pi 3B+ would be better, but a Pi 4 with 4Gb would mean it could actually be usable as an alternative to x86 for daily stuff.

    1. John 73

      Re: Pi-top

      It won't - it uses the HDMI connector to connect its screen. Plus, if the CPU is in a slightly different position, the heatsink connection wouldn't work. But it shouldn't be *that* hard for them to produce a new bridge for the new configuration. The extra RAM would definitely be helpful because their Polaris OS is a lot hungrier than basic Raspbian - I swapped mine over to vanilla Raspbian for various reasons but mostly that RAM issue, and it's a lot happier.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Pi-top

        I forgot if it used HDMI or the display pins to connect, I thought maybe if it used the display pins there was a chance of a drop-in replacement.

        I guess I'll have to send them an e-mail and hopefully a new bridge won't be erm, premium, pricing...

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: Pi-top

          I think I need a Pi-Top.

          This is a Pi-Top day!

          1. doublelayer Silver badge

            Re: Pi-top

            Given their previous pricing, it will probably be a lot more expensive than it should be. My problem with the PiTop idea is that they're making a laptop without some of the hardware standard on other laptops and yet still at a higher price. Having the pi as the brain is great and all, but I give the pi a lot more credit for that than the enclosure.

    2. James Hughes 1

      Re: Pi-top

      PiTOP were in the office Friday, so they are aware of the change, and presumably have things in hand.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Pi-top

        There is a Pi-Top [4] thing for the Raspberry Pi 4, but I can't work out from their website what it actually is.

        https://www.pi-top.com/products/pi-top-4

        Looks like a Pi4 in a case with a built in battery and tiny OLED screen but you need to connect a keyboard and screen.

        I would have preferred another integrated laptop, like PiTop [3]

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Pi-top

        James,

        On the subject of PiTop, I got one years ago for my grandson. My reaction was that for that purpose the location of connectors didn't work out very well. In particular the power and headphone connector were on the same side and as the power connector needed to be internal there was no easy way to connect plain old phones or speakers. Perhaps it would be worth thinking about how best to lay out the connectors for this sort of purpose - and then about something along the lines of chromebook except running NextCloud as the server (on a Pi, of course).

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: Pi-top

          PiTop has been through a couple of revisions since it first appeared, they may have addressed that problem already.

        2. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: Pi-top

          On my Pi-top the power and audio out are carried out to the external case, they're close together but not too close.

  9. JLV

    Any thoughts on using it for a cheap n cheerful home NAS? The issue that people kept on hitting was apparently USB 2.

    1. James Hughes 1

      As above, read the specs. Yes, it will make quite a good NAS, the networking is full GigE, and the USB3 means attached drives are very fast.

      1. DCFusor

        Spin-down

        Is important to me, being off-grid.

        While even the earlier pies make a usable NAS, I never did get drive spin down when idle, even using hdparm and other utilities. I went with Odroid HC2's for that and I'm happy. Those are as fast as makes any difference with multi TB spinners.

        Here, pies tend to grow a camera (I have a big place and it's nice to see parts of it without hiking) and always-on ones strictly use solid state storage. Those milliamp hours do add up when you have a bunch of machines on your network.

        FWIW, all my active pies run NGINX and VNCserver and both fit easily in a GB of ram, along with some of my own code for data acquisition and remote control of things...I even run (ugh) the arduino ide on the ones that have an arduino slaved to them. Thus making the management of backups a little easier - it's all in one place for a particular project (though it might be SD card boot and something else for the root filesystem). More ram will be nice, but...

  10. hammarbtyp

    I am sure at some point some commentator will say something like "This is not as good as <insert Raspberry Pi clone name here>" and totally miss the point of the Pi. It is not designed to be cutting edge, but part of a education infrastructure system. There may be faster/cheaper/more memory systems out there, but none have the community/peripheral/add on support of the Pi

    While I am a little irritated by the move to new connectors, I understand why they have done it and it looks like a great upgrade. Despite its educational background, we are finding loads of use for Pi's in industry, especially for those one off jobs which turn up.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Worst product launch ever!

    It doesn't even have a $999 stand!!!!!

    Other than that, no complaints...

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Worst product launch ever!

      I can weld you up a stand in the garage, proper metal etc. £999. It'll be massively overpriced though. I could even put a magnet in it for keeping paperclips safe.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Worst product launch ever!

        I''l take 3 if you promise to put a RasPi sticker on them :-)

        Icon, just in case ---------------->

      2. Allonymous Coward

        Re: Worst product launch ever!

        > I can weld you up a stand in the garage, proper metal etc. £999.

        You should do that. Then sell them online in the official store for, say, £9.99. Would be an epic troll.

      3. fajensen
        Pint

        Re: Worst product launch ever!

        I can weld you up a stand in the garage, proper metal

        Do it right, ferricekakes: You need to *machine* a stand from a block of solid Titanium or Incone, using a high-end 3D CNC machine with online swappable tools, to not have the product tainted by unclean human labour!

    2. Pete 2 Silver badge

      Re: Worst product launch ever!

      > Other than that, no complaints

      So it does have a reset button?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Worst product launch ever!

        "So it does have a reset button?"

        I'm worried about the minimalist, post-industrial feel of my stand not actual functionality.

        And a reset button might ruin the vibe of my stand.

      2. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        Re: Worst product launch ever!

        Maybe it's just like with that "C by GE" smart bulb:

        "Turn it on for 8 secs....

        Then off for 2,

        On/off, on/off, shake it till you cough

        You do the hokey cokey, and you turn it on,

        that's when it's all reset!"

        Ok, that sounded better in my head.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Worst product launch ever!

      Interestingly, I wonder if it'll get the same complaints that Macs and others do.. "$10 for an extra gig of RAM??" I'm guessing not.

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        Re: Worst product launch ever!

        Probably not. I'm sure the price for the memory upgrade is somewhat less than $10, but it's not like the pi people are going to be raking it in with the small margin on that. Meanwhile, Apple charge premiums of $100-$250 depending on how much additional memory is installed. Their memory may be faster and thus more expensive, but they are making more profit on them, their devices already have a rather large profit margin, and it tends to rub people the wrong way more often. I don't think that's a major problem, but it's useful to concede that there is a difference.

  12. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Thank you el reg.

    $35, $45, and $55 respectively (£33, £44, and £55 inc VAT.)

    Thank you for making it obvious that the dollar prices are before tax and the sterling has it included - it's been a major bugbear of mine so I really appreciate it when done properly!

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Thank you el reg.

      I was a little puzzled why a mainly Brit site reviewing a Brit product to a largely Brit audience would show all the prices USD with only some of the shown in £ in brackets.

      1. Martin an gof Silver badge

        Re: Thank you el reg.

        The Foundation has always set its target prices in US Dollars. I assume it's to do with electronic manufacturing always being priced in Dollars, much like oil, so you don't have to think about currency fluctuations.

        M.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Thank you el reg.

          "The Foundation has always set its target prices in US Dollars. "

          Oh, I got that for that actual RasPi, but the article carried on with USD only prices for cables, adaptors and PSUs too, not even bothering to put £ in brackets until almost the end of the article. It was the lack of consistency as much as anything else.

      2. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Thank you el reg.

        Deleted, exactly the same comment as Martin an gof, seconds late.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    victims of own success

    they got a tidy margin of x but the appetite has grown for xx and then - hey, think big, man! - XXX. This is a well-trodden path taken by all current giants (and those which have since withered). That said, they will have probably been bought by one of them, sooner or later and added to the "portfolio of products".

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: victims of own success

      Your point is obscure - what are you talking about?

      1. Pete 2 Silver badge

        Re: victims of own success

        > Your point is obscure - what are you talking about?

        One possible point is that $40 will buy you a 2GB + 8GB eMMC Orange Pi 3 (plus lots of extra on-board goodies).

        if that platform had any working / usable software ir would be eating the RPi 3 (or 4)'s lunch every day of the week.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: victims of own success

          A working / usable software 'ecosystem' (ugh) also costs money to set up.

        2. ilmari

          Re: victims of own success

          Usable software is probably the biggest reason raspberry pi has been so successful.

        3. Synonymous Howard

          Re: victims of own success

          Armbian Linux is very usable on the Orange Pi 3 as mine can testify even though it is currently marked as a "work in progress". The OPi 3 makes a rather fast firewall with native GigE, USB 3 .. the PCIe port is not supported under Linux because the "Allwinner H6 has a quirky PCIe controller".

          I use Armbian on the various Orange Pi models I have deployed .. PC2, +2E, Zero and One

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: victims of own success

      Look at the price points of each Raspberry Pi model. The 1Gb version is no more expensive than the original Pi 1 B. Cheaper if you count inflation.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: victims of own success

        Cheaper if you count inflation.

        Not sure the Consumer Price Index "basket of goods and services" measure of inflation applies to electronic components. They often get cheaper.

        1. jeffdyer

          Re: victims of own success

          Phones?

  14. DaemonProcess

    Yay!

    This is all I ever wanted from a Raspberry Pi. I think they should reduce the product line-up to a Zero for education and the 4B for home hobbyists, forget the rest.

    1. Aitor 1

      Re: Yay!

      Not really, but almost there.

      With a cheap iso mount for these I could see these being used as cheap office computers, with google docs etc.

      Sata would have been nice..

      1. Martin an gof Silver badge

        Re: Yay!

        Back in February I made some predictions to friends about the next Pi. I got the launch date wrong (I hoped it would be the end of Feb 2019) and I totally failed to see the twin HDMI ports coming, but I got most of the rest of it right.

        The key thing for Eben is keeping to that $35 price point and a key request from users has been "better (standard) connectivity" (i.e. ignoring the GPIO stuff). Since "connectivity" can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, it makes sense to put effort and money into a multipurpose interface. Upgrading to "real" USB3 solves several problems in one go - by getting rid of the single USB2-OTG bottleneck. The USB3 is run from a single PCIe v.2 lane and so can provide more bandwidth (Eben's article reckons a throughput of about 4Gbit/s from PCIe v.2's raw 5Gbit/s) than any spinning disc needs (SATA2 is 3Gbit/s raw) and as a bonus can be used for loads of other things too, which wouldn't be the case with SATA.

        What interests me is doing a comparison for everyday "desktop" productivity use of the Pi4 against a low-end x86 machine. Ignoring common peripherals (Monitor, mouse, keyboard), the cost of a usable 4GB Pi is not going to be as much cheaper as you might imagine.

        That said, I'm swapping out the "third desktop" at home for a Pi4 as soon as practical, releasing the Pi3B for other duties - web browsing (and hence using things like Google Docs) on the existing 1GB RAM machines is a lesson in patience, but LibreOffice runs surprisingly well. I would imagine that 4GB will make a huge difference.

        M.

    2. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Yay!

      I can't really agree with a zero and a 4 being the only models. The zero is great for its use cases as a controller for hardware, battery-powered machine, or headless WiFi device, but it's pretty much useless for everything else. It can't so easily be used for education because the price in getting its weird HDMI (that mini one that is between standard and the small one people decided to use) to connect to a school monitor and the USB OTG cable and hub to get input devices makes it more practical to just use the standard pi for that. The compute module helps people build stuff with the pi, which encourages open source development and helps support the foundation as well.

  15. Hans 1
    Happy

    i want

    I want, I will order and add to my collection 1, 2, 2+, 3, 3+ I always go for B model ... I do not see a market for 2Gb!

    1Gb for those who need little RAM, 4Gb for the rest of us ...

  16. Hairy Spod
    Pirate

    err games

    err never mind all this serious stuff.

    Does this mean I can expect a much better experience playing Mario64 and Dreamcast and that Gamecube emulation might now be possible?

    1. Steven Raith

      Re: err games

      Some sniffing around suggests the OpenGL3.X compatibility will likely mean more accurate emulation of 3D stuff, so yes, it should be an improvement, although as I understand it most of the popular emulators and retro gaming megapackages will need a bit of tweeking to be happy with the A72 architecture.

      I'm interested in this use case as well, can you tell?

      Steven R

  17. Bob Vistakin
    Facepalm

    Still no damn onboard flash

    Haven't they heard how SD cards are practically guaranteed to fail being hammered by Linux so much in its normal operation, never mind when running apps? At the start, when the Pi was aimed at teaching kids, that was OK because when they got corrupt you just put another in. But long term? How much would it have cost just to add 4G eMMC? No serious IoT user could rely on it as it stands. Possibly deliberately...

    The other downer is Google abandoning Android Things for all but smart home devices. This new device would have been brilliant had they not abandoned it for everything else. Oh, and taken away the only official way to discuss it with Google engineers when they killed G+.

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Still no damn onboard flash

      SD cards are still the best way for the 'desktop' Pi, cheap and easy to use. And yes, we are entirely aware of lifetime issues, which you can mitigate hugely by avoiding writing to them unless you really need to (ie logs to tmpfs etc). Some people have had Pi's running for multiple years with no SD card issues.

      The cost of adding EMMC would be a real problem - margins on devices like this are small - we don't want to make them even smaller.

      If you want industrial, use the compute module, which has EMMC. (No Pi4 version yet).

      That said, there is some flash on the Pi4! Not a huge amount, but it contains the bootloader. In the long time, it MIGHT be possible to leverage that, but that is subject to change.

      Cannot comment on the Google stuff, we are not Google.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Still no damn onboard flash

        No Android on Pi is another very positive advantage of the Pi in my opinion.

        Had it taken off as an Android device then the development on proper OSes would have had energy sapped by shitdroid.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Still no damn onboard flash

      It's Google, there isn't a month that goes by now without them announcing they're killing something. They make nice toys but don't count on them for anything.

      For normal Android on Pi try RTAndroid or Emteria.

    3. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Still no damn onboard flash

      I will happily cope without onboard flash which will only fail over time (in ten years, I bet most Pi's will still be fully operational).

      However, what they need to do is put a second microSD slot on (at minimum) so you can run a RAID1 mirror (bootloader-supported, of course). If they can do it with hot-swap, then SD-card failures become moot so long as you are watching them.

      I still can't work out why China can't sell me a "microSD" that actually is a flat ribbon cable that connects to 6 microSD cards and a tiny RAID5/6 controller. The increase in reliability for everything from photographers with cameras to people running RPi's would be fabulous, not to mention the cheap and easy increase in capacity / migration to new storage. If you can cram a Wifi access point and SD storage into a micro-SD size package, you can damn well make it so I don't have to rely on a single microSD not failing to keep my things running.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Still no damn onboard flash

        Something like this plus a USB to SATA interface plus USB boot for Pi 4 when it happens?

        1. Lee D Silver badge

          Re: Still no damn onboard flash

          They're only ever RAID0 = even more vulnerable than just a large microSD card.

          1. Dan 55 Silver badge

            Re: Still no damn onboard flash

            mdadm could set up software raid, although I'm not sure if it's made to cope with hot swapping SD cards on a SATA interface.

  18. 0laf

    Good stuff

    I got a 3 to play around with before and was really impressed by just how capable it was.

    Personally I could really use a version with 2x ethernet so I could try to set up some sort of bridge to control kids internet access. I'd really like to put a squid proxy on one.

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Good stuff

      USB3-ethernet adapter should do the trick. Putting two on the board would be expensive, and a cost passed on to all users despite it being a tiny use use. Probably isn't even room.)

      1. ROC

        Re: Good stuff

        How about something that to replace the ethernet port with a 3rd USB 3 port, and make the vertical height that much less as with the recent A+ model?

    2. Tom Chiverton 1

      Re: Good stuff

      You don't need twin ethernet. PiHole works fine by just taking over as the DHCP server...

      1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

        Re: Good stuff

        You don't need twin ethernet. PiHole works fine by just taking over as the DHCP server...

        The PiHole doesn't need to do DHCP to function, doing DNS is sufficient.

    3. Belperite

      Re: Good stuff

      I've got a single interface Pi acting as a firewall for low-level traffic between different VLANS, been working fine for years. Needs a VLAN-aware switch of course, but they're not too expensive these days.

    4. storner

      Re: Good stuff

      Couldn't you do that with multiple VLAN's on the Ethernet interface?

      1. 0laf
        Thumb Up

        Re: Good stuff

        Hmm stretching my knowledge a bit there. A VLan aware switch might be posssible soon. My house is getting built and I've been able to spec a server cupboard into it so I'll have small rack and a proper switch in there.

        Suggestions appreciated

        1. Martin an gof Silver badge

          Re: Good stuff

          My house is getting built and I've been able to spec a server cupboard into it

          Snap! Mind you, I barely have enough money to pay the builder, let alone buy any actual, you know, cable for power and network :-)

          I've used a reasonable amount of TP-Link kit at work. Yes, it's Chinese, yes there may be "issues" but there's no denying they're good value for money.

          At the low-end of "smart", the SG-108E is a capable little 8-port device for under £40 while the SG-108PE adds four PoE ports at around £80. It's upwards from there, really, I doubt 8 ports is going to be sufficient for anyone. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any reasonable alternatives to TP-Link these days.

          M.

          1. 0laf

            Re: Good stuff

            Yeah looking at the POE ceiling WAPS and it's TP-Link that comesup. Would like to run POE cameras to the house exterior as well. Found a reasonable priced Atom 1U rack mounted server that might well serve as a CCTV server. Suprised just how hard it is to find an open rack that isn't 42U.

            Significant other is rolling her eyes often at my excitement over Cat6 cabling routes.

            1. Martin an gof Silver badge

              Re: Good stuff

              If you want an open rack, you don't have to buy a ready-built rack, you can get rack strip from any one of several different suppliers, hacksaw it to the exact size you need, knock together a frame from some two-by-two and screw together your own bespoke cabinet for not-a-lot of money. The difficulty is getting the 19" just right. My experience with audio equipment is that no two manufacturers quite agree on the exact distance, and they don't all include elongated mounting holes.

              M.

              (there seems to be something wrong with the CPC website tonight on my browser, I hope the link is correct)

              1. Dan 55 Silver badge

                Re: Good stuff

                The difficulty is getting the 19" just right.

                LackRack? (Other 19" Ikea products area available, there's a link near the bottom of the page).

                1. 0laf
                  Thumb Up

                  Re: Good stuff

                  Liking the Lack Rack very much

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "A VLan aware switch might be posssible soon"

          VLAN are fine and useful, but remember you may need to route among them depending on your setup - or devices on different VLANs may not be able to communicate - sometimes is exactly what you want, sometimes not.

          The routing may happen in the switch - if it supports that and it's OK - or on another device acting like a router.

          VLANs are a layer 2 thing, but IP routing is a layer 3 thing.

      2. jtaylor

        Re: Good stuff

        For casual use, you don't even need VLANs if you're careful with DHCP. Just make a separate subnet and use the RPi as the gateway and to assign DHCP. One physical interface, but 2 IP addresses.

        Internet - Router - Home Network (192.168.0.0/24) - RPI - Private subnet (192.168.55.0/24)

        Raspberry Pi has 192.168.0.100 and 192.168.55.1 both configured on the Ethernet interface, and it's configured to forward packets. Not NAT, just simple forwarding.

        The main router gives DHCP addresses only where they have been assigned by MAC address. The Raspberry Pi gives 192.168.55.0 DHCP addresses to everyone else. All computers share the same physical network.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Couldn't you do that with multiple VLAN's on the Ethernet interface?

        If the interface supports it you can create assign multiple VLAns - but IIRC the switch port needs to be a tagged/trunk one as it has to support tagged packets which the NIC can identify.

        As you can assign multiple IPs - one works at layer 2, the other at layer 3.

        Still, the bandwidth is the same of single interface and switch port - and hardware resources will be share as well - with two real NICs you have double the bandwidth and dedicated hardware resources.

        Anyway I don't think even a Pi 4 could work as a router/fw at the full 1Gb speed. But at lower speed it could work without issues.

  19. Ramis101

    USB3 & Real Gigabit ethernet - WOOP WOOP!

    The only thing missing from the Pi3 was true gigabit connection. ever since the 2B i've run one of these as an ever-increasing in size NAS system. It truly is the lowest power NAS solution you can make/have. The only slight down side was the speed i could get it to sync at (with the backup NAS, naturally)

    I'm not going to poo poo the twin hdmi connectors, i'm sure there is a market & that's why they fitted them. For me, however i use all my PI's about the house headless & only need a monitor for basic set-up (via kvm before anyone pipes up with a @Gah vga, who uses that???). It seems now i'll need a tinky-winky hdmi to normal hdmi adapter, plugged into my hdmi to vga adaper. hay ho

    CPC Farnell only has the 2Gb in stock too. £42.53 inc vat. only 29 left.....28 now ;)

    1. A.P. Veening Silver badge

      Re: USB3 & Real Gigabit ethernet - WOOP WOOP!

      i use all my PI's about the house headless & only need a monitor for basic set-up

      If you can find the IP-address it uses (a good look in your DHCP server should suffice), you can even do the basic set-up headless.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Running hot. 21st Century fake stress

    " Those keen to hammer their Pis, in terms of workload, would therefore be wise to look at options for keeping things cool."

    Just getting around to recycle a turn-of-the-century server this week. It has fans bigger than a Raspberry Pi, bigger than a couple of Pies actually

  21. Annihilator
    Coat

    "beating off the competition"

    Lucky competition

  22. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    Well, faster, bigger, should help...

    ...with hacking JPL even more quickly :-)

  23. Phil Dalbeck

    Huge Thin Client Potential

    2 x 4k capable video outputs, h.265 hardware decoding (not that any streaming protocols use it... yet) and FINALLY putting the ports on only 2 sides instead of 3. Add that to the USB-C power and a proper, non bus speed constrained GBe NIC and more power to peripherals, and the Pi4 is the basis of a bloody amazing low cost thin client platform.

    Just in time for Windows Virtual Desktop to launch as well!

    Hoping the various low cost linux thinclient OS vendors (Thinlinx et al) jump on it soon.

  24. Sok Puppette

    Still a PoE hat?

    Sigh. These things scream out for on-board PoE... whereas I'm not so sure I get the point of pumping up the processor, burning a lot of power, and generating a lot of heat. Oh, well.

    1. Androgynous Cupboard Silver badge

      Re: Still a PoE hat?

      Jeez. They bring you the moon, you ask for the sun.

      1. James Hughes 1

        Re: Still a PoE hat?

        Yup, that's basically the story of Raspberry Pi, doesn't matter what we do, someone always wants something else, AND ITS OUR FAULT.

        1. timrowledge

          Re: Still a PoE hat?

          Welcome to the world of success...

  25. jmecher

    libreelec already has a beta supporting it

    ...see https://libreelec.tv/2019/06/libreelec-9-2-alpha1-rpi4b/

    Other uses I'd like to get it for: RetroPie as I have the controllers already and a lightweight desktop.

    Lightweight desktop is deployable today provided you have a cooling solution, the rest would need a bit more time to mature.

  26. Richard Plinston

    Beginner's Guide version 2

    The updated Beginner's Guide with Pi4 is now on the MagPi site.

    https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/issues/

  27. klockstone

    Security

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerability) says:

    ... Also, no Raspberry Pi computers are vulnerable to either Meltdown or Spectre, except the newly-released Raspberry Pi 4, which uses the ARM Cortex-A72 CPU.

    Comments?

    Keith.

    1. spunkypete

      Re: Security

      > Comments?

      No.

  28. Tim99 Silver badge
    Coat

    systemd

    "Open-source fans will be pleased to hear that the foundation is making progress in whittling down the amount of closed source software it uses."

    Now, if only the Poettering/Red Hat spawn was removed too...

    1. Tom 7

      Re: systemd

      There is a 64bit Devuan for the pi3 which I would imagine may run on this in a few days.

  29. Shadow Systems

    I wish I were rich.

    I'd buy a bunch of (Pi + case + PSU + cables) for my son to use in his class teaching the kids.

    Make it so he doesn't have to buy anything else in order to get them running, so a box of SD cards to go with it as well.

    And then I'd get about 100 for my own nefarious uses, like wiring one to a Roomba with a laser so I can mess with the pets!

    MUH HAHAHAhahahaha*Cough*

    Damn, now it's on My Skippy's List. Stupid list! =-)P

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    DSI display @4K ?

    have they increase the data lane count or is 4K output restricted to the microHDMI?

    Seriously DSI gets more like the old BBC Micro 8271 problem with each revision

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: DSI display @4K ?

      HDMI only. The DSI is as before.

  31. sbt
    Unhappy

    Unobtanium!

    This is great news, except for the fact that I can't find an Australian supplier with stock available within 90 days.

    Still I remember waiting a couple of months for the original model B in 2012.

  32. DasWezel
    Thumb Up

    Mind blowing

    I still can't get over the RPi, haven't since 2012, and every time I get close they impress me again.

    I know there are alternative SBCs out there, but for a pittance you can get something the size of a credit card that can serve so many purposes from a plethora of robotic applications to a full-blown lightweight PC or server substitute, all while running a pretty tight variant of a /very/ common free OS, all very well supported and documented either by RPF or the aftermarket.

    I've got or had these things running everything from robotic tea carriers while I was on crutches, to webcams to model railway controllers to IR cameras on rallies to email/web/etc servers to TV alternatives and countless other things beside. It's a fantastic platform for learning, for any age - the original RPi was my gateway to Arduino, ESP etc., while other people have made personal compute clusters, 3D scanners, or put them into use in industry. (I'm pretty sure someone will be churning out RPi4s as VESA-mounted thin-clients pretty soon, if they're not already)

    To my mind, it's the closest thing to an utterly universal and accessible computer currently going. Such a wonderful piece of kit.

    Beers for all at RPi Towers.

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